The story of Robert Earl Blundell is tragically overshadowed by the notoriety of the man who killed him. Much of Robert’s own life remains obscure, a painful testament to how the stories of victims can be lost to time. What is known is that on August 24, 1977, his life was violently ended inside the walls of the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah.
He was a male inmate, but his age at the time of his death is not documented in available records.
His killer was Stephen Wayne Anderson, a fellow inmate with a long and brutal criminal history. Anderson, who was born in Missouri in 1953, was already serving a lengthy sentence for multiple counts of aggravated burglary when he was transferred from New Mexico to the Utah prison in 1975. His time in Utah was marked by violence; prior to killing Robert, he had already been convicted of aggravated assault for stabbing another inmate during a movie screening.
On that late summer day in 1977, the two men were in the prison kitchen when an argument broke out. Anderson would later claim the dispute was over Robert’s alleged reputation as an informant, or "snitch." According to Anderson’s account, he grabbed a kitchen knife, followed Robert, and fatally stabbed him. He would maintain for years that the act was one of self-defense, a claim that stood in stark contrast to his escalating pattern of violence.
The murder of Robert Blundell was not an isolated event in Stephen Anderson's criminal timeline. In November 1979, Anderson escaped from the Utah prison. As a fugitive, he committed more murders. In February 1980, he shot and killed 29-year-old Timothy Glashien in a supposed contract killing. Just a few months later, on May 26, 1980, Anderson broke into the Bloomington, California, home of Elizabeth Lyman, an 81-year-old retired piano teacher. When she woke up and screamed, he shot her in the face, killing her. He was arrested at the scene while casually eating a meal he had prepared in his victim's kitchen.
It was for the murder of Elizabeth Lyman that Anderson would ultimately face the full force of the law. During his trial in California, he confessed to killing Robert Blundell and Timothy Glashien. While he was never formally tried or convicted for Robert's murder in Utah, prosecutors used his admission as an aggravating circumstance, painting a picture of a remorseless sociopath who killed both in and out of prison. A California jury convicted Anderson of first-degree murder with special circumstances and sentenced him to death.
During his two decades on death row at San Quentin State Prison, Anderson gained the moniker "the Bard of Death Row" for the award-winning poetry he wrote. His creative work led some to call for clemency, arguing it was a sign of rehabilitation. Among the most powerful voices against his execution was that of Robert Blundell’s own mother, Lois Smith. In a letter to court officials, she expressed a sentiment of profound grace. "While we deeply miss our son and brother," she wrote, "executing Stephen Anderson will not replace our loss nor bring us any relief. We do not want or need Stephen Anderson to die for the death of our loved one."
Despite these pleas, and numerous appeals, the state of California proceeded with the execution. Stephen Wayne Anderson, a serial killer responsible for at least three murders, was executed by lethal injection on January 29, 2002. He offered no final words. For Robert Blundell, justice took a different, more somber form—remembered not for the life he lived, but for the brutal way it was taken, and for the remarkable compassion shown by the family he left behind.
